Yesterday, Washington State governor Christine Gregoire announced a ban on the fruity, caffeinated malt liquor known as “Four Loko, ” calling the drink “a threat to the public health and safety.”
Washington follows Michigan, which banned all caffeinated alcoholic beverages last week. Several other states, including Oregon and New York, are expected to follow suit.
Four Loko comes in a roughly 24 ounce can, and contains 12% alcohol by volume, which means it contains the ethanol equivalent of roughly five ordinary lager beers.
Governor Gregoire said she was instituting the ban not only to protect young people, who are supposedly targeted by the brightly-colored cans in which Four Loko is sold, but young adults up to the age of 30 as well. Considering that Washington has seen a number of judges and other officials arrested for DUI recently, perhaps she should consider banning scotch, merlot and cabernet as well, in this case for posing a danger to public officials over the age of 40.
The Four Loko ban was precipitated by the drunken, hopped-up antics of several female Central Washington University students, who became convinced that some cabal of date rapists had spiked drinks with a rape drug, resulting in the carnage at a house party in Roslyn, Washington, where inebriated students were scattered across the yard like so many fallen soldiers.
Rather than ban these drinks, why not simply require a clearer label that includes a precise number of “units” – some standardized measurement of ethanol – so that the mathematically challenged will have a simple method whereby to meter consumption?
